By: Mark Fitzgerald Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu's $250 million loan to The New York Times Co. is "an ominous move" by a "capitalist with loyalties to a foreign state," The Seattle Times said in an unsigned editorial Tuesday.
"Major media companies should not be in the hands of a capitalist with loyalties to a foreign state," the editorial declared.
The Seattle Times, owned by a Blethen family-controlled company, has often parted company with the great majority of the newspaper industry on media ownership issues. It opposes repeal of the 1975 ban on same-market common ownership of newspapers and radio or television, for instance -- something the biggest industry organization, the Newspaper Association of America, made a priority for years.
Tuesday's editorial states the paper's principle right in the headline: "Newspaper ownership matters in American democracy."
Slim has said he has no intention of using the loan -- and an earlier purchase of a 6.4% stake in Times Co. -- to influence the paper's coverage or editorializing.
"Perhaps that is so, but it would have been better had the question never come up," the Seattle Times editorial said. The editorial notes that Slim became the richest man in Mexico, and probably the second-richest in the world, by buying the monopoly Mexican phone system from the government. And it notes the loan agreement with Times Co. gives him warrants that could increase his stake to 17%, though that stock would not include the super-voting shares with which the Ochs and Sulzberger family control the company.
"Still, the move is ominous," the editorial said. "Ownership matters. Slim is a capitalist with a close connection to the Mexican state. He is buying a substantial stake in the most politically influential newspaper in the United States, and he easily has the wealth to buy the whole thing."
A link to the full editorial is posted
here on E&P's business-oriented blog, Fitz & Jen.
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